


Feverish

by angellteeth



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Pre-Series, Rewrite, literally no idea what the genre of anything i do is, slaps top of self, this bad boy can fit so many ways to rewrite this one night in it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:35:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26509849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angellteeth/pseuds/angellteeth
Summary: S shows up looking like absolute shit, and passed out! A rewrite of an old thing.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	Feverish

Stanford knew he fucked up the second he smelled burning cloth and flesh, just a moment before S screamed. Worse? He pushed harder, for just a second. 

He hadn't been in his right mind in weeks.

"Oh God, Stanley, I'm so sorry-" He stopped pushing and rushed to get up, leaving S slumped forward and breathing heavily.

He tried to help him up, but S just smacked him away, however weakly. Despite not accepting help, he didn't seem to be able to get himself up that well, putting most of his weight on the wall.

He looked a lot more feverish than he had when he got there. Had Ford not being paying enough attention? Or did getting a ward burned into your skin just do that to you? Either way, he felt terrible for it.

"Stan, please-" He tried again to help him.

"Don't you FUCKING touch me!" S shoved him back, the force making him fall back against the wall entirely. S had a pale look that Ford hadn't noticed before, and a glaze in his eyes that was definitely new.

He wasn't all there in the head at the moment. That made two of them.

Stanford watched him slip down to the floor, muttering something incoherent, and try to catch his breath and stand back up. He did worse the second time around, and resolved to just sit on the ground glaring at his brother.

Then, he went limp.

For a second, Stanford panicked. Then he checked his pulse and panicked more. He was stable, but he was also _unconscious_. Sure, he no idea about any of the supernatural nonsense (as far as Stanford knew, at least), but that didn't mean Bill couldn't mess with him _now_.

No matter, he wasn't able to wake him up anyway.

Given the fever, he probably could use the sleep.

Stanford dragged him upstairs, as gently as someone can drag a man up a set of stairs, and into the bedroom that used to belong to F. Had it been weeks? A couple of months? Since F had quit the project? Days had started blurring together.

Didn't matter. He had to focus on the task at hand.

He laid him face down on the bed and peeled off his grimy jacket. The shirt was a different story. A dirty, bloody mess that S had been wearing so long it was practically second skin. He found it was easier to just cut it away. He could easily replace it.

Turns out the brand wasn't the only time S had been burned.

Despite his best efforts to concentrate, Ford found himself distracted looking over the myriad of scars. Old and slightly new circles that may have been from cigarettes all over the back of his neck, a long scar over where Ford was pretty sure his kidney would be, several dozen smaller indistinct scars littering the rest of his back.

Ford shook his head, focusing on the task at hand again. Hadn't F insisted on stocking on medical books after the gremloblin incident? 

He rummaged around the closet and shelves, until he found what he wanted. Two textbooks on physical damage, and one on mental.

He flipped through the books, tearing some of this pages in his haste, until he found what he needed.

How to dress a burn.

He tossed the book onto a desk nearby and got to work, having to reread the same passages several times over more often than not. He couldn't tell how long it took, minutes and hours blurring into one during the task.

All he knew was that by the time he was done, he was exhausted.

He went back down to the basement and grabbed his last journal, and started writing about recent events once he'd sat at the desk, trying to figure out his next move. S wouldn't be able to help. Of course, he doubted he'd want to stick around, but he'd need to rest for a while. The journal needed to be hidden before then.

Could he try to contact F again? Pay off one of the townsfolk to take it away and hide it? Maybe it would be best to destroy it, like S had tried...

No, no no no. It was his life's work! It may be dangerous but he couldn't _destroy_ it... No, he'd have to figure something else out.

Before he could figure anything out, he slumped over on the desk and dozed off.

It could've only been a minute or two when he jolted awake. The ink on the pages was still a little wet.

He shot up, shoving both the journal and textbook away, and looked around the room. Nothing seemed to be out of place, and S still seemed to be stable in the bed, though stable didn't exactly mean good. 

He got up to check on him, and found a triangle scrawled on his back in sharpie. He thought he felt his heart stop for a second, and tried to calm himself down. It was no worse than the time Bill had replaced the word "burden" with "sea otter".

What mattered in the moment was taking care of S. It might even help retain his slipping sanity.

He gingerly felt S's forehead. It radiated a concerning heat. He quickly went and wet a cloth, wrung it out, and placed it on S's forehead. That seemed like something that would help.

As he sat back at the desk to ponder solutions to his problems, S started to stir.

He watched him flip himself over, wincing in pain and mumbling something unintelligible. Ford got closer, but he still couldn't understand him. S was staring at the ceiling, or through it. He wasn't focusing on anything in particular.

Though, some part of him registered Ford's movement.

He couldn't tell if he'd induced some kind of trauma, if it was the fever messing with his head, or both, but he started to babble the minute he noticed Ford.

"Don't, please, don't, I'm sorry, don't, not again-" S pleaded, slurring his words and having a hard time focusing directly on Stanford.

It was unnerving. The brother he knew had rarely ever apologized, much less begged.

"It's fine, Stan. You're gonna be fine." Ford lightly pat him on his good shoulder, causing him to flinch.

Ford sat back and kept trying to think of something, while S muttered uselessly until he fell asleep again.

**Author's Note:**

> literally had no idea where to take this its 6 am lmao my sleeping habits are awful and it is affecting my writing


End file.
